It is the best part of a year since Andrew Bailey's speech set the financial markets on an apparent course to a brave new LIBOR-less world. It then took a few months before the industry (including the regulators) got together and put in place working groups and action plans to address the likely discontinuance of LIBOR.

At a recent gathering to wave a former colleague off into retirement, I found myself in conversation with another who now specialises in indemnity insurance for the property sector. What began as a lightweight chat about the stress-relieving virtues of such products in residential conveyancing, turned into a thought-bending analysis of how insurance might be a solution to most, if not all of the risks inherent in commercial real estate (CRE).

Background
The Land Transaction Tax and Anti-avoidance of Devolved Taxes (Wales) Act 2017 ("LTT Act") became law in May of 2017 and is the second of three statutes to establish devolved tax arrangements in Wales under the Wales Act 2014 (the other two being the Tax Collection and Management (Wales) Act 2016 and the Landfill Disposals (Wales Act) Tax Act).

For those attending MIPIM this year, despite the rain on the parade on Thursday, and feeling more subdued than before, there is an overarching sense of cautious optimism. That is not to say optimism that the market will grow fast or boom, rather, optimism that the market will not crash.

The Loan Market Association's (LMA) annual series of joint seminars with the Loan Syndications & Trading Association (LSTA) on trends in the Secondary Market, is due to take place in early March. At last year's gathering the LMA noted an increasing tendency for loan documents to include borrower-friendly terms that restrict the transferability of loans. This view has been reiterated several times since.

This year's Atlantic Hurricane season and, previously, storms in New York and New Orleans are distressing and highly expensive indicators that the potential effects of climate events may be felt by banks, insurers, investors and other businesses.